At the TCA board in Los Angeles, creators of Empire released another look at the highly anticipated second season. The 18 episode second season will air September 23, 2015 on Fox.
In July, we reported on the very first teaser for the new season and if you missed it you can watch it here.
The first full trailer for Empire, entitled “It’s Not Business”, is another glimpse of what happens after Lucious Lyon is imprisoned. The minute long look opens with Lucious telling Cookie in jail, “I never stopped loving you. I tried. It never went away”. Tensions continue to rise between the Lyon family and there is plenty of business that needs to be taken care of. Season 2 of Empire picks up where season one ended, Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard) in jail, while Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) and Andre (Trai Byers) try to remove Lucious as Empire Entertainment’s CEO.
The second look also shows brief moments of celebrity guest stars Marisa Tomei and Chris Rock. Marisa Tomei will play Mimi Whiteman, which we reported on in early July.
Creators of Empire, are also looking into the future for the show. Lee Daniels, the series’ co-creator and producer, said that “without question” there will be a spin-off of the show. Daniels added that “there’s so much ripe story that we’ve talked about already, about Cookie’s family, what makes her her. That in itself is fascinating to me” (New York Times). Brian Grazer, executive producer for Empire, said that their agenda was to “never get corny. Completely stay authentic. … As long as it stays dangerous, we’re cool. As long as we can stay that way for this season, these guys can think about spin-off, we’ll be OK” (New York Times).
Empire season 2 has been making headlines with the addition of big celebrity names like Chris Rock, Marisa Tomei, Pitbull, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Kelly Rowland, Alicia Keys, and Mariah Carey. Although there are an abundance of celebrity guests, Lee Daniels will try not to stray from Empire‘s origins, “I find that the more celebrities, the more stars I put on this show, the more it takes away from the (Lyon) family. The family, the family, the family is the most important thing” (New York Times).
We can expect to see the Lyon family again September 23, 2015 on Fox.